Ridiculous drivel – Daryl Peagram’s idiotic latest leaflet that commits Southend West Conservatives to lavish expenditure at a time their government is making swinging cuts

Poor leaflet content is hardly news when it comes to the output from Southend West’s Tories, but I struggle to recall anything as bad as the latest offering from their Westborough team. It is beyond awful; frankly it is embarrassing.

It so poor I take delight in reproducing both sides here. Quite how their candidate can call himself competent after authoring this is beyond me.

Mr Peagram likes to dish out slurs. His descriptions of Southend Labour include Old Labour and hard left. Clearly he has not met many of us.

The Joint Administration is variously described as: socialist, coalition of the unpopular, communist, left-wing. Again, Mr Peagram’s knowledge of the members who make up the JA is woeful.

Daryl’s idiotic spending plans include reinstating a five-day a week rubbish collection, which means scrapping the million plus savings per year. He will reverse cuts to the school improvement budget. He is also opposed to assisting local small businesses which employ local people, complaining about the council forwarding grants to a couple of restaurants. I look forward to him explaining where the money for all this is going to come from.

Still, since he is the voice of Southend West Conservatives (one of them at least) he handily provides us with enough ammunition against him and his ridiculous party.

Someone ought to remind Southend West’s Conservatives that Cllr Velmurugan readily, and often, describes himself as Conservative-minded.

The attack on Cllr Anne Jones is so inaccurate as to be almost laughable. Cllr Jones is “not seeking re-election in Kursaal ward after what she did to their vulnerable kids.” Quite frankly, I’d be embarrassed to be in the same party as Peagram.

Daryl states that the “Conservative are the largest party in the UK & Southend“. Wrong on both counts. That they accept someone as delusional as Daryl merely highlights just how desperate the Tories are in Southend West.

I could almost applaud this drivel insofar as it does nothing for the Conservative cause. I do not because it actually demeans politics. If Mr Peagram survives as the Tory candidate until May I will only presume that any semblance of quality control for their candidates has been abandoned.

Daryl Peagram’s drivel – Conservative quality control on holiday

The competition for worst Tory leaflet in Southend is usually a competitive affair – not this year. Daryl Peagram’s effort for his Westborough campaign is an assortment of misinformation and lies. There is so much rubbish here that it is difficult to know where to begin. I can only imagine that Mr Peagram wrote this after a long day in the hot sun, it really is dire.

Ok, a few corrections.

• Westborough does not “have the biggest population of any ward in the borough“. it is number six of the seventeen.
• No youth clubs have disappeared under the Joint Administration.
• The Liberal Democrats and the Independent Group are not full of socialists. Some of the Independent Group may have once described themselves as such, but they are a hotchpotch of disaffected party members from all quarters. Ron Woodley, Council Leader, describes himself as Conservative, as does Marimuthu Velmurugan.
• We have not voted to nationalise the High Street. Impossible even if we wanted to (the clue is in the name – nationalisation requires national government).
• There are no plans to concrete over Two Tree Island.
• The unhappy record of local schools in special measures is an inheritance from the Conservative administration.
• No toilets have been shut.
• Labour won two seats here last time.

There is more. He makes all sorts of wild claims that can only be described as irresponsible. He is oblivious to the reality of police cuts foisted onto Essex by his Government. Makes stupid claims about the rubbish collections. He apparently “hates bank bailouts” – which runs counter not just to common sense, but his own party’s policy.

He manages to blame the failures in the NHS on the Joint Administration locally, seemingly unaware that the NHS is being run (down) by the Conservative-led Government.

He also boasts about the local Conservative manifesto (their first, and Labour have been producing one for years) then claims he can vote independently – which makes the manifesto worthless anyway.

It really is shockingly poor. Any Tories reading it must cringe in embarrassment.

Getting the best deal for Westborough

Totally

Well, he completely lives outside of Westborough ward, absolutely. He is entirely living away from it, wholly. He fully resides in Blenheim Park ward, thoroughly; an utterly different ward, quite altogether.

Don’t you just love independent candidates? Almost a policy vacuum aside from their opposition to being pinned down to anything.

Westborough intouch Autumn 2014 – as delivered in Prittlewell

I picked this odd beast up in Prittlewell ward. Aside from questions as to whether Westborough Tories understand where their ward begins and ends, I find this a somewhat amateurish effort. (It is also dated Autumn 2014 – Summer may be near to ending, but it is still with us.) It looks like it was created in Word and printed on a standard computer printer. Perhaps this was the effect Westborough’s Conservatives were after.

This newsletter has a proliferation of font types and oddly worded headlines. What does ‘STOP! the fortnightly waste collection’ mean? – Westborough enjoys a weekly collection in common with the rest of the borough. This is either scaremongering or stupidity – take your pick; either way it is wrong.

The reverse includes three photographs of places outside of the ward (and one not even in Mr Amess’s constituency) – not one picture of Westborough in the whole thing.

Mr Amess’s letter manages to be factually inaccurate in relating the results of May’s elections. He describes it as if all fifty-one council seats were being contested, whereas the truth is that only eighteen contests were staged. They won four out of eighteen, are far less impressive ratio than nineteen out of fifty-one.

It contains little in the way of real news, and certainly no celebration of all that the MP has done in Parliament. If I was an MP I would be reporting back on what my Government was doing to make lives in Westborough better. That Mr Amess does not refer to his Government speaks volumes in itself. Of course, he raises questions on such topics as the EU, immigration, and the benefits system – and not one mention of education, employment, the cost of living, workers’ rights, public services, etc.

Westborough Labour rose – summer 2014 edition

Mike’s bus petition press release

Labour candidate Kevin Robinson, resident Mrs Sookias, and Labour candidate and petition organiser Mike Royston

Bus Campaigners are submitting their petition to Southend Council, urging the Council to work with local bus service providers to improve the number 29 bus service.

The campaign was launched in September by veteran bus campaigner Mike Royston in response to the need he identified that local residents have for the number 29 bus service to run later in the evenings.

Mike Royston, Labour candidate for Westborough ward, said “The number 29 bus currently stops running at about 7.00pm in the evening, which causes hardship for the many bus users across the borough who use this popular bus route and are reliant on this service. The situation is made all the worse by the fact that this is the only bus service that serves Fairfax Drive.”

Kevin Robinson, who is also standing as a Labour candidate for Westborough ward, added, “Following the launch of the campaign, Arriva indicated they would be willing to consider running the service later in the evening.

We feel this petition clearly shows this improvement is needed and hope it will result in the Council and Arriva providing a better service.

We would like to thank everyone who has given support to the campaign.”

Getting the best deal for Westborough

The local choice Westborough

Ill-advised twittering from Westborough’s UKIP candidate

Carl Whitwell is one of the two UKIP candidates standing in Westborough ward this year. Carl is a young man, and like many young men embraces new media. He has a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Here are a couple of screen shots from Mr Whitwell’s Twitter account. To say his posts make interesting reading somewhat understates it. There is much that I cannot post here without offending decency. His posts certainly border on the racist, sexist and homophobic, if they do not actually cross that line.

UKIP are attracting attention owing to ill-judged comments from some of their candidates (Ukip candidates add to Nigel Farage’s woes with a barrage of racism). I think Mr Whitwell may have some explaining to do. His Twitter feed is full of references to UKIP and he makes no attempt to separate his political comments from others.

Clearly UKIP were struggling to find candidates for the Southend-on-Sea Borough Council elections, but surely some quality control is in place. In the meantime I suggest Mr Whitwell engage his brain before committing anything more to Twitter.